Unfortunately, there’s a very vocal minority of Berkeley neighborhood activists and merchants that want to prevent bus riders from San Leandro, Oakland and Berkeley from benefiting from faster transit. They must be worried that the City will soon recognize the environmental and community benefits of this project, so some of the opponents have decided to circumvent the council and go straight to the voters.

On March 19th, Dean Metzger and Bruce Kaplan of Berkeley filed a request for a ballot title and initiative summary for an anti-BRT initiative (PDF) that they presumably hope to get on the November ballot. This is just a first step, and who knows if they’ll be able to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot, but the initiative is bad news for the East Bay. It’s also just bad policy.

From the Findings and Purpose section:

The purpose of this measure is to enable the people of the City of Berkeley, by majority vote, to decide whether City streets or portions thereof shall be converted to transit-only or HOV/bus-only lanes, prior to dedication of such lanes.

Regardless of any issues one may have with AC Transit’s current BRT proposal, this is just bad planning. This initiative would mean that anytime the City wanted to convert lanes to transit-only lanes, the decision would have to be made by the Berkeley electorate. Even if the dedicated bus lane only extended one block into Berkeley from Oakland or another neighboring city, Berkeley residents would have the final say. Projects could be held up for months or even years if an election wasn’t approaching (I don’t see the city holding special elections for this issue).

But it gets worse…

When a change [in land use or transportation] is modest or uncontroversial, it is appropriate to rely on elected representatives to make these decisions, but if the change is significant or potentially harmful, the citizens should have the opportunity to decide their own future directly through the ballot.

This is just ludicrous. To me, this reads that the filers believe that deciding on dedicated bus lanes is the only land use decision that is “significant or potentially harmful” to the city. Does this mean that building permitting decisions are insignificant? How about zoning decisions? If Metzger and Kaplan have so little trust in their elected officials to make good planning decisions, why not strip the Planning Commission of all of its rights and duties and conduct all planning decisions by ballot initiative?

Normally, I’d just shrug something like this off – after all, the vocal minority of NIMBYs that controls much of Berkeley politics is one of the main reasons I moved to Oakland (well, that and the exorbitant rents). But this initiative would effect the entire East Bay, holding up transportation upgrades that are sorely needed. If we’re ever going to lure a significant portion of the population out of their cars, we need to invest in transportation and ultimately accept significant changes to our lifestyles. One might think that this environmentally friendly issue is something that “liberal” Berkeley would support, but that remains to be seen. Whether this initiative makes it to the ballot and whether it passes has the potential to show the true colors of Berkeley residents.

People in Berkeley against BRT don’t really understand the benifits. The number of cars a good BRT system can get off the roads is significant. That is good for transit riders and drivers as congestion is dramatically reduced.

“Progressive” Berkeley should be embracing this transit improvement.

Someday, I predict, they will learn to love it and pretend they thought it up.

I do believe that Berkeley residents showed their “true colors” by putting this initiative on the ballot.

No matter how many times people say BRT is a great solution, it just does not mean its true. The draft EIR makes is clear that there is an insignificant reduction in the noxious gasses that will be produced if BRT goes ahead. The draft EIR fails to show a significant mode shift from auto to car in BRT goes in. The draft EIR fails to look at all the effective alternatives to BRT.

I suggest you do your homework and get on board with a transit solution that actually attracts riders out of their cars. BRT just does not do that.

[…] for more money to supplement their record-breaking public investments in transit. Meanwhile, Berkeley residents seek to put all traffic and transit improvements to public vote, to block a regional project that goes […]

[…] the Council had not, in fact, done. A few months ago, though, the beginnings of a ballot measure were in the works, aiming to stop BRT once and for all, and then, just yesterday, the Chron reported that the […]

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